Summer is a bracingly honest season for readers: it's too hot to pretend to be clever, so you just read books you actually like. TIME asked some of its favorite writers what they read when they read for fun

Aravind Adiga

Alessia Pierdomenico / Reuters / Corbis

Aravind Adiga

Aravind Adiga picks The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The hero of Dumas's 19th century classic is young Frenchman Edmond Dantès. On the eve of his marriage, Edmond finds himself falsely accused of a terrible crime. He is stripped of his job and bride and exiled to a faraway island prison for life. Who has done this to him  and why? It takes a while, but Edmond figures it out, then breaks out of prison, finds a fabulous fortune, changes his identity and plots his revenge. I reread this book every few years. I think it is possibly the most perfect story ever told.

Adiga is the author of Between the Assassinations and The White Tiger, which won the Man Booker Prize in 2008